John Riccitiello has announced that he will step down as chief executive of Electronic Arts at the end of the month.

Acknowledging that the company's financial performance is tracking below expectations, John Riccitiello, who has served as CEO of Electronic Arts since 2007, submitted his letter of resignation to the board of directors today. His final day will be March 30.

Riccitiello will be temporarily succeeded by Larry Probst, who was named Executive Chairman by the board. "We thank John for his contributions to EA since he was appointed CEO in 2007, especially the passion, dedication and energy he brought to the company every single day," Probst said in a statement. "John has worked hard to lead the company through challenging transitions in our industry, and was instrumental in driving our very significant growth in digital revenues. We appreciate John's leadership and the many important strategic initiatives he has driven for the company. We have mutually agreed that this is the right time for a leadership transition."

"EA is an outstanding company with creative and talented employees, and it has been an honor to serve as the Company's CEO. I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and after six years I feel it is the right time for me pass the baton and let new leadership take the Company into its next phase of innovation and growth," the soon-to-be-former CEO added. "I remain very optimistic about EA's future - there is a world class team driving the Company's transition to the next generation of game consoles."

Riccitiello actually assumed the CEO mantle from Probst while the company was still trading at around the $60 mark; the subsequent half-decade has seen the company's share value plunge to well under $20. Whether that crash in value, and EA's inability to return to its previous state, had anything to do with Riccitiello's decision to fall on his sword is the sort of question that nobody in a position to know will ever answer, but is nonetheless almost certain.

UPDATE: In his resignation letter, Riccitiello stated that his decision to leave was driven by "accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year."

"It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago," he wrote. "And for that, I am 100 percent accountable."

You know, that picture is actually more horrifying than Jim's version (below)

There's just a subtle hint of "I'm going to kill you and no one will ever know" about that face.

Moving on...

Can't say him leaving is a huge loss for me. While I know that just changing the man at the top will probably not do much to change EA, Riccitiello has presided over some of EA's shittier behaviour and whoever comes in after Probst (assuming he doesn't stay on) may be able to hopefully change them for the better, however slightly.

Of course I dubious at how much the change of CEO will effect EA's direction as a company but I will take this as a win for us and keep cautiously optimistic that just maybe EA can be slightly less evil for a bit.

EDIT

God damn ninj'd on the wizard of oz! Oh well take it away Kool & The Gang

Back when he was brought to the helm of EA in 2007 i was honestly kind of excited. He was a CEO who played games! Fucking imagine that. He also greenlight some new IP's like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge.

However, I just sort of lost respect for him as the years went on.

I'm glad he's out and I hope someone with a more consumer friendly mindset will step in after Probst's brief transition role.

Great start! Now to move on to the board of directors, the CFO, and everyone else in a position of power there. Seriously, changing the guard in one position, no matter how powerful, in a company will NOT change their policies. In order to do that the whole leadership must be changed. But let's not ruin the day; this is a start, a glorious start.

People come and go in companies such as this all of the time, it doesn't really change much when it comes down to it. The chances are he is just a scape-goat to keep the shareholders happy. It's much easier to blame an individual for a companies failures rather than admit the core policies are wrong.

Hopefully they can get someone in there with some goddamn business sense. And I mean business sense in "how can we make gamers want to buy our products?", not "how can we try to screw over our customers for as much money as possible?". Yeah yeah yeah business exist to make money, go watch the Jimquisition episode on the subject if you want to know my response to that. The point here is that the former makes customers actually want to give companies money (see Valve) and the latter makes people hate you (see EA, of course). EA has been nothing but a mess of consumer unfriendly practices that has made more and more people hate them over recent years.

On a side note, can someone please explain to me what everyone's objection to Project Ten Dollar is? That was about the only good thing EA ever did this generation in terms of business practices, and people raged on that more than they do about online passes, always online DRM, bullshit DLC practices, and all the other evil has done. Honestly, I still don't see what was so bad about a company saying "Hey, thanks for buying our game new and supporting us. In return, have some free DLC." That was fucking brilliant, that's how you SHOULD try to drive in more new game sales over used sales: by THANKING YOUR CUSTOMERS. But everyone bitched and now what we get is a shitty online pass that we have to enter to prove we actually bought the game new? And people DEFEND this one?! The fuck is wrong with people?

Personally, I think we've never been in a better position as a company.

How about 6 years ago before you came in and ruined everything? When your stock was worth more and people didn't think you were the anti-christ of gaming? I'd say EA was in a better position as a company then, Johnny.

Light the candles and bring out the whiskey!, this day just got good.Not sure what will happen to ea in general probably not much but think everybody us gamer's went against bad gaming practices and showed ea who's right and john may of step down because of it celebrate my fellow gamer's Rejoice!

People come and go in companies such as this all of the time, it doesn't really change much when it comes down to it. The chances are he is just a scape-goat to keep the shareholders happy. It's much easier to blame an individual for a companies failures rather than admit the core policies are wrong.

True. But it is so cathartic when they do throw the angry masses a scapegoat.

Personally, I think we've never been in a better position as a company.

How about 6 years ago before you came in and ruined everything? When your stock was worth more and people didn't think you were the anti-christ of gaming? I'd say EA was in a better position as a company then, Johnny.

Well at this point, they've got very little to do but improve...so they are in a pretty good position, from a certain point of view.